Is this a sign of improper carbonation or improper bottling?

Question

This is a story of two very different pours from the same batch. TL;DR: the first bottle was foamy and very carbonated, the second was normal, but the first bottle went flat and was cloudy, while the second bottle was within normal range for head, carbonation, and clarity.

The Story: I poured a bottle for a friend into a hand-rinsed, standard pint glass, pouring the first half down the side and the second half down the middle, being careful not to disturb or pour the lees. When I opened it, I noticed some bubbling in the neck, but no gusher. The beer was fairly foamy, very bubbly, with a head that dissipated very quickly.

I immediately opened a second bottle for myself, noticed the same bubbling, but got sidetracked and did not pour for about 10 minutes. Same type of glass and pouring technique. However, my beer had a nice head, that lasted a little while, and carbonation was normal.

When were about halfway through both beers at the same time, and noticed that my friend's beer had gone sort of flat with no lacing and was a little cloudy, while mine was still carbonated, and was pretty clear (you could see through it when held up to light). (By the way, the beer was somewhat green, and hopefully will benefit from more time in the bottle.)

My Question: Is this a sign of improper carbonation, or could it be due to inadequate mixing in the fermenter before I bottled? I.e., maybe I racked too much beer into bottles and should have left more in the fermenter. Or maybe something different? I have never had bottles that varied from bottle to bottle before.

Recipe ingredients and process:

• Belgian pale ale - all-grain: 95% Belgian pale malt, and 5% Belgian biscuit;
• Safbrew T-58 yeast, properly rehydrated, with est. cell counts per Mr Malty's calculator.
• OG: 1.050 --> FG: 1.010;
• fermented in primary 15 days at 67°F; no secondary;
• I did not cold crash or use any finings, but I gingerly moved the fermenter to the counter where I was bottling about two hours before bottling;
• bottled straight from fermenter, and primed with exactly one Cooper's carbonation drop per bottle;
• I did not feel like I was greedy about bottling too much beer, and I recall leaving quite a bit in the fermenter to avoid sediment, even pouring out the last bottle instead of capping;
• bottle conditioned for 14 days at 70-72°F and another six days at 67°F, both in the same sealed case box.

Answer 1

My first thought is that the beer was not very uniform when bottled. Some brewers I know try to get scientific about mixing without introducing oxygen at bottle time; me I just mark the first few and last few from the batch and worry less!

Answer 2

It could very well be due to fermentation problems. Read this...it has tests that can help you diagnose the problem.

http://byo.com/stories/article/indices/35-head-retention/697-getting-good-beer-foam-techniques

Also, if it's an extract batch, keep in mind that extract beers generally have less foam. Foam is produced by protein and a lot of protein gets removed when extract is made.

Answer 3

You were methodical about the important aspects in your write-up, and nothing looks suspect there. And since you primed with carbonation drops, that would rule-out non-uniform distribution of bottling sugar. And you later said:

we sampled each other's glasses, and agreed that mine was much better than his

So it goes beyond carbonation. Yes, less carbonation can have a bit less 'bite', but based on what I've seen here, I'd guess it was a non-sanitized bottle, and you had some bacteria in there.

It might turn out to be an "interesting" batch, since your bottling wand could have scraped a little bacteria-laced goo off of the bottom of the 30th bottle, so bottles 30 through 48 might be bad, whereas bottles 1 through 29 are good.